Placerita
by Lisa Morton and John Palisano
About the Book: It’s 1928, and something strange is afoot in the desert town of Placerita just north of Los Angeles. When young biologist Alexis Crawford discovers an unidentifiable specimen washed up in the wake of a devastating flood, it begins a journey that will reveal the dark conspiracies at the heart of California and the secret known only to a few: that beneath the City of Angels is an ancient world of tunnels lined in gold, a world that is home to the legendary Lizard People.
“PLACERITA is an intriguing premise, set against the ambiance of the 1920’s and steeped in the culture of early 20th century California. Morton and Palisano have created a seamlessly woven collaboration of cults, old Hollywood legends, tragic disasters and eerie rumors. Adventure and risk await in this quick, compelling read.”
– Laurel Hightower, author of CROSSROADS and BELOW
“Like a cross between ‘Chinatown’ and and the biggest conspiracy theory of them all, Morton and Palisano’s ‘Placerita’ addresses the intrigue behind 1928’s catastrophic collapse of the St. Francis Dam, corruption, organized religion and saurian urban legends in a fleet new noir that wastes little time in getting to the good stuff. The fact that it’s fun as hell is a given, but the fact that it sticks with you, that it offers more than a little fascinating food for thought, is not. With its deceptively simple language and its wonderfully serpentine plot, ‘Placerita’ is proof that even in the most modest of packages, these writers can pack a hell of a punch. Don’t miss it.”
— Polly Schattel, award-winning author and filmmaker
“…a fine, fast-paced story of one woman’s struggle to discover the truth, however unpleasant. The fascinating dilemma in the ending is simply genius!”
– Milt Theodossiou, Books of Horror
About the Authors:
Lisa Morton is a screenwriter, author of non-fiction books, and prose writer whose work was described by the American Library Association’s Readers’ Advisory Guide to Horror as “consistently dark, unsettling, and frightening.”
She is a six-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award®, the author of four novels and over 150 short stories, and a world-class Halloween and paranormal expert. Her latest releases include Calling the Spirits: A History of Seances and Haunted Tales: Classic Stories of Ghosts and the Supernatural (co-edited with Leslie S. Klinger). Recent short stories appeared in Best American Mystery Stories 2020, Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles, and Classic Monsters Unleashed. Lisa lives in Los Angeles and online at www.lisamorton.com.
John Palisano’s novels include Dust of the Dead, Ghost Heart, Nerves, and Night of 1,000 Beasts. His novellas include Glass House and Starlight Drive: Four Halloween Tales. His first short fiction collection All that Withers celebrates over a decade of short story highlights.
He won the Bram Stoker Award© in short fiction for “Happy Joe’s Rest Stop” and Colorado’s Yog Soggoth award in 2018. More short stories have appeared in anthologies from Weird Tales, Cemetery Dance, PS Publishing, Independent Legions, Space & Time, Dim Shores, Kelp Journal, Monstrous Books, DarkFuse, Crystal Lake, Terror Tales, Lovecraft eZine, Horror Library, Bizarro Pulp, Written Backwards, Dark Continents, Big Time Books, McFarland Press, Darkscribe, Dark House, Omnium Gatherum, and many more. Non-fiction pieces have appeared in Blumhouse Online, Fangoria, and Dark Discoveries magazines and he’s been quoted in Vanity Fair, The Writer and the Los Angeles Times. You can find out more at: www.johnpalisano.com